Thinking Free

Thinking Free

With every manufacturer all but brandishing around their version of a netbook, it's pretty hard to find someone that differs from the pack. There's only so much you can do with the design, hardware and form factor, so most offerings tend to be broadly similar. Fujitsu's M2010 may look like it falls into this trap, but it does have that little something extra. Business users rejoice, this is the netbook you've been looking for.

Business Mobility

As a business user, you'll realize that most netbooks aren't really suitable for your needs. They either come preloaded with a trial version of Microsoft Office, or perhaps not even that. This leaves you the choice of forking extra for the retail version or simply opt for an open source Office suite. Thankfully, Fujitsu has decided that consumers should not suffer such problems and has done away with the Microsoft Office trial.

Instead, the M2010 comes loaded with ThinkFree Office, a Java based office productivity program that includes a word processor, spreadsheet, a presentation program and a HTML editor. The look and feel resembles exactly that of Microsoft's, so users won't feel at all lost using the program. There's no need to pay extra as it's already included as part of the cost of the netbook.

Pleasure in Business

With a loud pair of speakers delivering the goods together with a pretty clear and crisp screen, the M2010 can double up as a media player on the go. Shame though, the keyboard was just average in size, with flex that made typing on the netbook a little bouncy. The trackpad too has its own share of issues. While it was responsive enough and tracked fine, we found odd dead zones at the edges of the trackpad.

This meant that most users would be adjusting a little inward instead of the usual sides when using the scroll functions, not to mention having to get used to the already limited space of the trackpad. Fujitsu did state that this issue only occurs in the M2010 and not its other netbooks, but it's just strange that this is the case in the first place.

Apart from the trackpad though, everything else seemed much the usual stuff you would find on most netbooks and worked fine.

A Balanced Mix

While its design seems to be a pretty generic mix of the usual netbook designs and specifications, Fujitsu has taken the pains to make the M2010 much more attractive for users. Although its performance is pretty indicative of the average netbook, the battery life of 256 minutes (or 4 hours 16 minutes) shows that it has enough juice for the road.

Lastly, retailing at S$888, the Fujitsu M2010 is a little more expensive than usual, but you'll be getting a netbook that comes ready for use with minimal hassle.